


A Secret to Keep

by CrazyNekoChan



Series: Soudam Week Summer 2020 [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Established Relationship, Hinata Hajime & Kamukura Izuru Are Twins, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24142582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyNekoChan/pseuds/CrazyNekoChan
Summary: Kazuichi and Gundham were a happy couple who loved each other very much. So it was only natural for them to decide to move in together after they graduated from Hope's Peak Academy.However both had a secret that the other could never find out.Day 1 of theSoudam WeekPrompt: Flirting |Monsters| Angels/Demons
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Soda Kazuichi/Tanaka Gundham
Series: Soudam Week Summer 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742218
Comments: 11
Kudos: 135





	A Secret to Keep

Kazuichi and Gundham were a happy couple who loved each other very much. Ever since they began dating during their school years, the couple has been inseparable. They spend every day with each other after class, went on dates, kissed, cuddled, held hands and a few times spend the night together, and every day they fell more in love.

So it was only natural for them to decide to move in together after they graduated from Hope's Peak Academy and spend their lives together.

However both had a secret that the other could never find out.

***

Gundham had to admit to himself that he was truly enthusiastic about finally sharing his path with his paramour, however he was just as nervous about it. Gundham truly loved Kazuichi with all of his dark, cursed soul and was willing to give his everything to him and him alone. Yet despite his devotion for his Dark Prince, he was hiding a deep dark secret from him, one that he could never tell him even if it hurt his soul deeply to lie to his beloved.

Gundham was not fully human. In fact he was not a mortal at all. He was a in fact a mage, a user of the darkest magic who was schooling his skills for many years now where he had gathered knowledge from all parts of this realm during his long travels. His speciality lied within the element of ice, gaining him the title of Overlord of Ice, even if his allies always assumed his title to be nothing more than a gimmick of his out of amusement. Also unknown to the common mortals of this realm, his trusty warriors were not merely his pets, but his familiars with whom he had bound himself through a pact of trust and camaraderie.

The only other mortal, alas the title was unfitting, who was aware about the truth of the breeder's origin was the She-Cat, as she herself was not a human but an elf who just like him lived in secret amid the human kind. Though that they knew each other's secret was only due chance as Gundham, being a mage, was naturally unaffected by most kinds of magic and as such was not fooled by her enchanted lie that her kingdom was part of Europe and not part of the Realm of the Fey as was the case, which all the normal mortals were happy to believe.

Yet Kazuichi, his beloved was unaware about the truth and Gundham had to continue to lie to him as he knew that his paramour feared the darkest of arts and might resent him if he knew the truth.

Only that he did not know yet how to hide the truth while they shared their private realm from now on.

***

Kazuichi could hardly wait to finally move in with Gundham. He could straight up cheer with how excited he was about it. He could finally live with his boyfriend in their own shared home – and also wouldn't need to sneak between each of their dorm rooms at night. He felt like his heart was going to burst from the thought alone to be together and share his life with the man he loved.

However at the same time he was anxious about it. Because he had a secret from Gundham, which would become very hard to hide when they would live together.

Kazuichi wasn't exactly as human as he pretended to be. He was actually a shark type merman and not a human at all. When he was on dry land he looked fully human, aside from his sharp teeth which always stayed no matter what, so it was easy to fool everyone. However when he was within water, or drenched with enough water, he turned back into his merman form where parts of his skin took on a greyish tone, he grew fins on his arms and back, and his legs would also be replaced by a tail-fin. Which was something that would be hard to explain if Gundham ever saw him while in water, so this could never happen no matter what. Only that with living on land as a merman came the little problem that Kazuichi was prone to dehydrate very fast, so he not only had to drink way more water than what was considered average for a human, but he also had to submerse himself for a while in water at least once a day.

The only people who knew the truth were Hajime and Izuru, since the twins were both half demons – though Hajime came way more after their human dad, while Izuru came more after their demon mum. They had found out about each other's secrets through Izuru being way too observant as always. With being a merman, Kazuichi had the ability to enchant people with his voice, usually through singing. Which was a bit of an unpractical power sometimes, since the mechanic had the habit of absent-mindedly singing along to music playing on the radio while working, which always ended up with him accidentally enchanting the other students in the Tech Club at school. At least until Izuru got annoyed that the merman constantly put his best friend Yasuke under trance on accident and warned him to stop it.

However Kazuichi's own boyfriend was completely in the dark about it and Kazuichi was afraid of what Gundham might think of him if he ever found out that he was dating a merman, a race that became legend for drowning and eating sailors.

***

The day of the move had finally arrived. Gundham and Kazuichi had searched far and wide for the perfect realm to call their home and after many days of searching they have found a perfect home befitting for their every need. It was within the same town in which they had resided over the last three years, where most of their allies had also decided to stay, and provided enough room for the couple and all of Gundham's hellish beasts. It even provided space for the Tamer of Automation to set up a private workshop to use for the many genius inventions of his, and had a garden for the breeder's trusted warriors to gain exercise and move their mortal forms within the fresh air.

This realm provided them with everything that they wished for and their allies were as kind to lend them a hand at transporting all of their belongings into their new shared realm and assemble their furniture. It had taken a full day of transporting heavy boxes and assembling everything until everything was finally in place so that the couple could start spending the upcoming days and nights within their new realm comfortably. All that was now left was to unpack their personal belongings over the following days.

It was the earliest of hours when Gundham slowly awoke from the goddess of the sun shining her warming light into the bedroom he from now on shared with Kazuichi. His paramour himself was still deeply asleep, using the Overlord's chest as a pillow in his undisturbed slumber. Carefully Gundham moved his beloved from his mortal form and untangled their limbs without disturbing the other's rest, so that he could leave the bed and begin his day. Pulling the blanket over Kazuichi's mortal form, which was still unclad from their more _passionate activities_ from the previous night, he then dressed himself quietly before he left their bedroom to follow his daily duties.

Many of his hellish beasts were already awake, some of them trying to inspect the many still packed boxes strewn within the rooms. After greeting all of his trusted familiars, he then dressed up the ones in the need of their morning walk before leaving his private realm with them to give them the opportunity to relieve themselves after a long night. As this was the first time that his hellhounds had the opportunity to inspect their new home, the walk took longer than usually as the dogs followed their natural instinct to sniff at everything they saw to make themselves accustomed with their new territory.

It had taken almost half an hour until he returned to his private realm with his hellhounds and upon entering he was greeted by his paramour who had risen from his sleep during his absence.

“Welcome back, Gundham.” Kazuichi smiled at him with a cheery expression, before they greeted each other with a kiss. “Since I didn't know when ya would come back for breakfast, I instead started unpacking some stuff, partly because the cats tried to get into the boxes.” he told him with amusement as he pointed at one of the emptied boxes where both mentioned felines had decided to get comfortable inside of. However upon seeing what box it was that Kazuichi had unpacked, Gundham felt his blood run cold.

“My Dark Consort.” Gundham gained his mate's attention as he stared at the empty box and tried to not seem too unnerved, “Where did you place the things which had been inside of this particular box?”

“Oh, ya mean your occult stuff? I put them in that glass cabinet that ya bought.” Kazuichi pointed at the mentioned object in which now many of the mage's magical artefacts and potion ingredients were displayed. “Did ya wanna put them somewhere else? If yes, I can move them for ya, if you want.”

“It is fine, do not worry.” Gundham replied. He could move them later, as for now he was simply relieved that the mortal did not accidentally activate any of the magical artefacts and only assumed them to be nothing more than unseemliness decorations for Gundham's 'occult hobby', as the mortals tended to call it.

“Though I'm surprised at how much you've got.” Kazuichi then commented, “I don't remember ever having seen even half of the stuff ya own in your dorm room. I mean I never was aware that ya collect these replica wands from movies. If I knew I would've gotten ya some for ya birthdays or something, though then again I don't know much about fantasy movies so I would probably end up buying the wrong thing...” he mused.

While Kazuichi was fully oblivious about the truth that none of these artefacts were replicas from movies, but ancient magical relicts and wands with the ability to concentrate magical power, Gundham was glad that his partner did not think anything of them.

However he needed to change the topic, before the mortal could begin to question the origin of the artefacts and figure out that they were indeed not fakes, but genuine. “Say my paramour, how about we now share our first meal of the newest day together? As I have to admit that I am beginning to form quite the appetite now.”

To the mage's relieve, his distraction worked as Kazuichi happily nodded, “Good idea. After moving all this stuff yesterday I'm hungry as hell.”

With the initial conversation forgotten the couple made their way into their kitchen to prepare themselves some food to consume.

***

It took a few days, but finally Kazuichi and Gundham managed to unpack the last of their stuff. They had to move all of their belongings more than once until they finally managed to find a fitting place for everything – without the risk of the breeder's pets knocking anything breakable over. Kazuichi was especially glad that he finally finished setting up his little workshop in the small garden shack next to their garage. He could hardly wait to start using it and work on machines again in his free time. Though he will probably miss having access to all the nice machinery he had when still visiting Hope's Peak, but at least now the other students from the Tech Club couldn't steal his tools any more. It had been quite the struggle figuring out which tools belonged to Kazuichi and which ones were Miu's, since they both regularly borrowed stuff from each other.

The first thing that Kazuichi did was working on his bike, which Mondo was so nice to fetch for him since Kazuichi himself wasn't exactly able to ride it long enough without getting sick and the biker always wanted to ride the pimped up motorbike anyway. Due to moving Kazuichi hadn't had any chance for days to work on machines and before that he only had very little time due to first looking for a home together with Gundham and then also having to get everything they needed to actually live in their new home. However now he finally could again work to his heart's content without anything getting in his way. Being able to feel the cool metal under his fingertips and dismantle and re-ensemble his vehicles again was fulfilling to say at least. Sitting on the floor next to the bike, the mechanic tried to figure out ways with which he could make the machine drive even faster. He wasn't sure if it was in any way even possible any more, however the challenge was thrilling and almost nothing reached the pleasure of finishing a new project.

However while upgrading some smaller parts of the motorbike's engine, Kazuichi was starting to feel itchy. Very itchy in fact and he had to stop himself from trying to scratch his skin with his with oil covered hands. It did however make him look up at the clock hanging on the wall and notice that it was already afternoon without him noticing. It had been longer than he anticipated that he last drank something, as his water bottle was standing on the worktable and had almost been forgotten, and now the merman was starting to get too dehydrated and his skin was drying up.

“It's late anyway.” Kazuichi said to himself as he got up and after wiping the oil of his hands with a cloth, he put away his tools, before making his way towards the main building so that he could take a bath. Inside he couldn't see Gundham anywhere, which suited him just fine at the moment as he made his way towards the bathroom. After filling the bathtub with clear water, Kazuichi then took off his clothing and threw them into the washing basket, before he got into the warm water. The moment he was submerged within the water, he could instantly feel how his body shape-shifted into his true form until instead of his legs he saw a single grey fin lazily sticking out of the bathtub. The itching also began to lessen immensely, making the merman sigh in relaxation as he leaned back more into the bathtub until most of his upper body was under water and he was now using his gills to breath instead of his lungs. As much as Kazuichi didn't like the thought of living in water despite it being his natural habitat, since the ocean didn't have things like supermarkets or electricity, he loved the feeling of being inside of water. Till this day it still amused him that technically he could easily beat Aoi, the Ultimate Swimmer, in a race due to him having a tail-fin unlike her to swim fast, since he was after all build to live and hunt in water. Not that he or any of his kind hunted for food, mind you. He just went into the nearest shop like everyone else.

After relaxing for a bit in the bathtub and letting his skin soak up the water inside, Kazuichi then began to clean himself properly and made sure that every part of his body got wet, since his tail-fin was longer than his legs were and as such didn't fit properly into the tub designed to be used by humans.

Just as he was busy washing the tip of his tail-fin and thus was almost finished with cleaning himself, the doorknob of the bathroom door was suddenly pushed downward, making the merman freeze up. Only that the lock kept the door closed.

“My consort, are you still occupying the bath?” Gundham's voice rang out with confusion, “I have seen you go inside almost a full hour ago.”

“Y-Yeah!” Now Kazuichi was panicking, because while his body was still wet he couldn't turn back, “Give me a minute to finish up, then ya can have the bath.” he tried his best to keep his voice as casual as he could so that the other wouldn't suspect anything to be wrong.

“You do not need to hurry yourself, as I do simply need to retrieve the hairbrush which I use for the hellish beasts, as I need to groom their furs.” Gundham explained to him, “As such I would be thankful if you would unlock the door for a moment.”

This was a problem! There was no way that Kazuichi could let Gundham inside right now. “C-Can that wait for a bit? I'm not decent right now!” The merman quickly climbed out of the tub, trying to not make too much noise and to not flood the bathroom from his sudden movements, before he grabbed a towel and began to furiously rub his body dry.

However unlike what Kazuichi was hoping, Gundham didn't leave. “Excuse my confusion, however I do not quite follow how it can be that neither of us mind seeing the other using the facilities, as you have put it so nicely 'We already seen way more than that of each other', yet now you are feeling shyness about me seeing your unclad mortal form within the bath?” He sounded puzzled and Kazuichi couldn't blame him, since usually neither of them showed any shame towards each other; so suddenly having Kazuichi, who had a habit of walking around practically naked at home when he's too lazy or too hot to get dressed, being shy about being seen in the bath would seem weird. However he had a good reason for it, but he for sure couldn't explain it to the other!

Slowly Kazuichi managed to get himself dried enough, however Gundham seemed to grow more worried as he knocked again. “Kazuichi, are you alright in there? You are behaving in a very peculiar way.”

“I-I'm fine!” he replied hastily and finally got himself dry and back in his human form. Quickly jumping up on his now reformed feet, he wrapped the towel around his waist, grabbed the pet brush Gundham asked for and opened the door with a grin. “Ya were looking for this?” he pushed the brush into Gundham's hands.

It took a moment for Gundham to catch up as he looked at the brush with a baffled expression. “Thank you..?” He then looked at Kazuichi, looking him up and down as if he was looking for something that was out of the ordinary and would explain the for him odd behaviour of his boyfriend. However when he found nothing, he then finally gave in. “I will then return to the hellish beasts and I would recommend that you get dressed soon, before your mortal form grows hypothermic after being within the water for so long.”

“I will, don't worry.” Kazuichi replied with a carefree smile, before winking sheepishly at his boyfriend to distract him even more from any suspicion, “Though I bet that ya wouldn't mind if I stayed just like this.”

The insinuation made Gundham blush all the way up to his ears, much to Kazuichi's amusement. With a teasing grin he then passed his boyfriend with a sway to his hips, feeling pride when he noticed how Gundham's eyes followed him until Kazuichi vanished into the bedroom and was out of sight.

Which was where he gave a deep sigh in relieve, because this had been way too much of a close call for his comfort.

***

Gundham had to admit that his current task was more complicated that he had originally anticipated. As he could not simply practice his magic within the open for his paramour to see, he needed the usage of a hidden room which only he could reach. He already owned a private room within the realm of mages ever since he had been visiting the Realm of Learning, in which he could practice his magic skill undetected and in which he had stored his cauldron, spell books and most of his more exotic potion ingredients. However he needed to prepare a magical portal so that he could access the magical realm without having to repeatedly travel to the local hidden portal hidden within the forest surrounding the town. As he had done the same portal spell within his former dorm room within his former Realm of Learning, he already knew all the steps he had to take in order to preform the spell and summon a portal. However it was a difficult spell which required time, effort, skill and multiple enchantments and runes, all without Kazuichi noticing.

The mage has chosen the broom closet that they had within their home as a portal, as it was the place which was the least used and would not lead to his Sharp Toothed Prince accidentally stumbling upon the preparations for the portal until it was complete. As the portal also only opened to whichever mortal carried Gundham's Hellhound Earring on their person, it was also impossible for Kazuichi to ever accidentally pass the portal when wanting to retrieve anything from the closet.

Yet first the mage had to complete the portal spell, which proved itself difficult as he could only do the preparations while his Dark Consort was not within their shared private realm.

As Kazuichi was occupied within his workshop, which usually keep the mechanic distracted until the latest of hours, Gundham decided to use the opportunity to draw the final set of runes so that he could finally finish the portal. After having his trusted Dark Devas of Destruction check if his paramour was still occupied within his workshop, the mage then retrieved some special coal he owned which had enchanted properties and was used by mages to draw temporary spell circles and runes as otherwise they would have no function. He had also copied the page on which the needed steps for the spell were written down, including a depiction of the many runes he now had to draw, as the single copy was less noticeable than the mage carrying one his many ancient spell books on his person.

Following the instructions carefully, he drew one highly intricate rune after the other on the inner side of the door frame. He could not make any mistakes, as otherwise the portal would not gain any function. Slowly he made progress until he finally reached the last rune. As soon as he had finished all of them, he only had to say a chant to create the portal and bound it to his hellhound earring.

However just as he drew the last line, the voice of none other than his Dark Consort sounded out, making the mage jump and only just manage to slip the enchanted coal and the paper depicting the portal spell into his pocket. Yet he could not close the door in time and as such he could only hope that his consort would not notice the small runes drawn along the inner frame.

“Hey Gundham.” Kazuichi walked up to him. “What are ya doing in the broom closet?” he asked in a casual manner as he approached his mate.

Trying to not alert the mortal, Gundham tried to keep his voice in the same casual manner as he lied, “I have simply returned our broom back to its place of rest, after cleaning up the hair from my hellish warriors.” As it was approaching the change of seasons his hellish warriors did shed their fur and as such it was not too out of the ordinary for him to be doing cleaning.

“Ah, well okay.” Kazuichi shrugged as he accepted the excuse without question. “Well, while talking about the broom, can ya pass it to me please? I accidentally knocked my glass of water over while working and need to sweep up the shards.” He leaned slightly to the side to look past Gundham and point at the broom in question, which was standing within the closet, all the while seemingly not noticing the dark runes of coal on the dark wooden door frame, much to Gundham's relieve. This was one of the only instances where he was thankful for his paramour's more limited eyesight.

“Of course, my consort.” Gundham replied and quickly handed him the broom in the hope that his paramour would leave soon.

“Thanks.” Kazuichi gave a grin as he took the broom. However just as he was about to turn to leave, he stopped in his tracks as he looked back towards the broom closet. “Say Gundham...” he began, making Gundham hold his breath in worry that his mate noticed the runes and demanded an explanation. However he did not. He instead asked a different question that the mage did not expect, yet did not truly prefer over the possibility of him noticing and questioning the runes. “I've been wondering for days now. What is it with this super old wooden broom that ya own?” he asked as he pointed back into the closet where in a corner the broom in question stood. “I mean isn't it a bit tattered? Especially since we bought us a newer one together?”

Kazuichi's face was filled with confusion and Gundham could not fault him for this, as from the view of a mortal this behaviour would be seen as odd. However the broom was not one that one would use to sweep, as it was a broom used for flying which Gundham had used over the prior days to travel towards the local portal leading to the magical realm with the help of a spell that rendered him invisible to the untrained eye. Which was not something Gundham could say to the mortal. “This broom was once owned by the angel and I have taken it into my possession after her unfortunate passing.” This was not a lie, as the broom had indeed been in possession of his mother and he had inherited it along with all her other belongings. However from the standpoint of a mortal it must sound peculiar as for why he had kept a seemingly tattered broom meant for nothing more than sweeping as a memento from all the possible objects one could inherit. Which was obviously something Kazuichi questioned internally as well, as he looked at his mate with a baffled expression, making Gundham feel mildly embarrassed.

“Well... okay?” The confusion in the other's face was evident, “I mean a bit random, but I guess that ya were close to your mum, so who am I to question it?” he then shrugged, as he accepted the explanation. “Anyway, I'm gonna clean up the glass now, before one of your pets somehow manages to get into the shack and hurt themself.” With this being said, the Tamer of Automations then left to follow his word.

Gundham still felt lingering embarrassment about what his paramour might think of him now, however he ignored this feeling and instead quickly spoke the enchantment to complete the portal and make the runes vanish from sight, before Kazuichi could return and spot them.

***

While Kazuichi didn't really mind having to do housework, the one thing he didn't enjoy for even a moment was working in the garden. It was so utterly boring and unlike when he had still been in Hope's Peak, it now was only him and Gundham to split up the work between them, so he couldn't push this particular task onto someone else while he did something else instead.

At least he could listen to music playing on his mobile phone while he was stuck working in the front yard and pulling out weeds. With his headphones in his ears he had the music playing on shuffle, where one random song played after the other to keep him somewhat entertained during the mundane work. He did notice that his concentration did ever so often waver, however since he didn't need much concentration anyway for this he didn't exactly care. It was just the same kind of movement over and over again until it became something akin to muscle memory. He could only hope the he would finish soon, so that he could stop the ever repeating task that could put him to sleep if it weren't for the music playing in his ears whose beat was dictating the rhythm of his movements.

After a while Kazuichi could only register the music playing in his ears as it took over his full concentration and his garden work was nothing more than some automatic hand and arm movements. An upbeat pop song began playing, making Kazuichi bop his head to the beat and he quietly sung the lyrics to himself as he continued his work with not much left to do. He did enjoy this song a lot, so he was glad that it was playing now. It was a fun song which he enjoyed to listen to a lot and he enjoyed the energetic and lively lyrics even more. So much in fact that he could never help himself from singing to the music and moving at least a little bit to it, either by tapping his foot, drumming his fingers, bobbing his head or straight up dancing. Though in his current position only bobbing his head and singing was possible. But it gave him so much more energy to finish the work thanks to the song's fast pace.

The song had just reached its last few lines when Kazuichi was pulled out of his small little world by a loud shouting.

“You fiends better cease this and leave this realm before I make you!”

Looking up quickly and pulling his headphones off, Kazuichi saw that Gundham was furiously walking up to him and stop next to the fence running along the outside of their property, where multiple people were standing and just staring at Kazuichi until he stopped singing. Instantly Kazuichi realised that he had been singing outside and these people must have heard him when passing by and got enchanted until now. This was bad!

The group of people were looking confused and baffled about why there were even standing there, as the siren's enchantment did cloud their mind while people were under it.

However Gundham was simply angry and Kazuichi couldn't fault him, as he had no idea that the secret mermaid accidentally put them under a spell to lure them in. “What is the meaning of this, that you fiends decide to gawk at my consort?” Gundham growled as he protectively stood between Kazuichi and the people on the other side of the fence.

“W-What?” One of them replied in complete confusion about what he was even doing, while another person added in distress, “I'm sorry, I have no idea what happened.”

This however didn't calm Gundham, making Kazuichi quickly get up from his spot on the lawn and carefully pull his protective boyfriend to the side by his arm. “I-It's okay, nothing happened.” He tried to solve this problem quickly, because these people had no fault at all about suddenly being entranced by the mermaid's siren voice, so they didn't deserve to get in trouble with the police over it.

“But my paramour, what these fiends were doing is harassment.” Gundham protested, as he was correct. At least from a human standpoint, since for him it must have looked like nothing more than a bunch of strangers creepily staring at his boyfriend who was too occupied with his work than to notice.

However this really wasn't the case at all, but there was no way that Kazuichi could tell his boyfriend that. So instead he looked up at him with his best attempt of puppy-eyes he could muster, knowing very well that Gundham was weak to it, “Please just forget it for now. Nothing happened and I just wanna go back inside.” he gave a weak pull on Gundham's arm back towards the house.

Kazuichi noticed how Gundham's resistance wavered and he then gave a sigh, before glaring a last time at the unfortunate small crowd of people, “If I detect you fiends within close proximity of my consort or this realm within the future, then heed my words that you will suffer my wrath.” With this the people quickly apologised for their behaviour before running off as fast as they could.

To avoid anything else happening, Kazuichi led Gundham back inside their house where his boyfriend instantly looked him up and down with worry.

“Are you sure that you are fine Kazuichi?” Gundham asked him with concern in his voice, “When I have left our garden to check on you I have seen these despicable fiends starting at you from behind, as if they were plotting something within their twisted minds.”

Gundham was genuinely concerned about his boyfriend's safety and well-being, and Kazuichi didn't know how to ease his worries. These people had nothing on their minds, quite literally in fact, as they were simply lured in by Kazuichi's enchanted voice and had so little control over their minds and bodies that they would've happily jumped into the open ocean to drown just to follow his singing. Which really hadn't been his intention at all. But he couldn't tell him that and he didn't know what to say instead. So he continued trying to distract his boyfriend until he would finally get over his worries. Which would probably take days.

“How about we have something to eat now and relax for the rest of the day?” Kazuichi asked and leaned against his boyfriend's broad chest, letting him hug him and hold him close for a bit. “I just wanna cuddle right now.” Hopefully letting the protective guy take care of him for the rest of the day would calm his worries down.

Gently Gundham let his hand run over Kazuichi's back, “If you wish for it, then I will prepare us a meal to share.”

Giving a smile, Kazuichi then looked up at his boyfriend, “I'll help then.”

***

On this day Gundham was alone within his private realm, as he himself was not required to visit his Realm of Labour unlike his Prince of Darkness who had left earlier within the day to follow the regular ritual of earning money through labour. As such the daily chores that accumulated within their private realm daily fell into Gundham's responsibility until his paramour would return within the evening. The tasks were a daily ritual of cleaning the realm and caring for the breeder's Hellish Beasts. However unlike the other days, today the mage could ease his work by the usage of magic as no one would be there to witness his craft. So with the wave of his wand and an enchantment spoken out, the tools to clean the realm began to move through invisible hands to tidy everything within the vicinity under the mage's command.

With this task being taken care of, Gundham now had the ability to use his sacred time to care for his familiars who were craving his attention and care. With joy in his cursed heart, he then fulfilled their wish and groomed their furs, took them on walks within the vast nature, fed them, and gave them exercise in form of play.

He continued with this until midday hit and his familiars decided to rest their mortal forms for now from all the activity, which he could not fault as their small forms could not store as much energy as he could.

As all the other daily chores had been finished early due to his magical abilities, Gundham had nothing more left to do for the day until his paramour was due to return. So he was free to do whatever he wished for and as such he made his way towards the broom closet in which he had hidden away the portal to the Realm of Magic to go and school his magical skills more. As for late he did not have as many opportunities ever since sharing his realm with his beloved.

Activating the portal with the help of his Hellhound Earring, the mage then opened the door in which a portal was dimly shining from between the now glowing runes he had painted onto the door frame. Walking through the portal, Gundham found himself in his hidden realm in which he stored most of his magical artefacts. Closing the portal behind himself, as he would only require it to be open until he would return to his private realm to prepare the meal to share with his consort upon his arrival, he then took one of his many ancient magic book to study.

For many hours the mage schooled his skills as he practised the many spells written down. After he finished training a new spell until he had perfected it and memorised it, Gundham closed the book. Looking up at the clock hovering within the air, he saw that he still had a few hours until he was required to return. However beginning to study a new spell would take up more time and as such he decided to finish for the day and return for now.

Cleaning everything he had used up and returning it to their original space, Gundham then reactivated the portal and stepped through to return to his private realm. However to his horror he then found himself face to face with Kazuichi, who was staring at him with wide eyes as if he had just seen Death itself after seeing Gundham walk out of a magical portal.

***

Only Nagito could somehow manage to bring his car into a workshop to have a scratch removed from the paint and somehow manage to set the car on fire while parking, causing the workshop having to close for rest of the day. Kazuichi couldn't for the life of him understand how his friend always did it. He had been convinced for almost a full year that Nagito must be cursed or something, however Hajime checked in secret after they had begun dating with the result that he wasn't cursed and it was all just on Nagito for some reason.

At least no one got hurt and nothing got damaged from the fire, however the workshop was filled with smoke and made working too dangerous at the moment. As such Kazuichi and all of his colleagues now had the rest of the day off, so at least something good he guessed. He could even surprise Gundham now, who had the day off today. Maybe they could do something nice together?

Humming to himself at the idea Kazuichi returned home.

Upon arriving Kazuichi noticed that Gundham wasn't there. No one reacted from his calling aside from the pets who had been sleeping in the house, who had woken up and walked up to their secondary owner to greet him. Since Kazuichi couldn't see Gundham anywhere, he guessed that he was probably out to buy something or maybe even went to Nekomaru's gym to train like he often did.

Kazuichi was a tiny bit bummed out that his boyfriend was out and as such they couldn't go out together, however he shrugged it off and instead decided to relax until he returned. Going into their bathroom, Kazuichi changed out of his jumpsuit from work and put it into the washing basket for now. Which is where he noticed that one of the cats seemed to have yet again thrown the cat litter all over the floor again from digging in it. Since the cat was a huge scaredy-cat she refused to go into litter boxes with a lid on them and as such they had to leave the lid off, leading to the cats often scattering the litter around.

Sighing to himself, he quickly threw on clothing to wear at home, before he went into the broom closet the grab something to sweep the litter up. Their dustpan and brush would do the job nicely, so he grabbed it before closing the door again to avoid the animals going inside and throwing everything onto the floor.

However Kazuichi only managed to walk one step when he suddenly heard the door of the broom closet being opened and- Where the fucking hell did Gundham come from?!

***

Gundham's mind was racing all over the place. Kazuichi had seen him leave the portal and was now starting at him with shock. Why was Kazuichi even here?

“W-What?” Kazuichi stammered out in his shocked state, “I.. I just was in there and ya weren't so, were did ya come from?” he could not keep his voice steady, as his fear of the unknown was showing itself. His breathing also became irregular, as his anxiety was getting hold of his mind from what he had seen and could not comprehend.

The mage now had to react fast, as his beloved was now experiencing fear and anxiety, and he could not let him have a panic attack. However he did not know what to say to explain himself. So instead he tried to calm his paramour through gently touching his arm, “Kazuichi, please calm yourself.”

Yet this only made Kazuichi flinch away. “Gundham, e-explain yourself!” His eyes darted between Gundham and the still activated portal behind him. “What is going on here? Where the heck did ya suddenly come from and what the fuck is that thing?!” he pointed at the portal.

Gundham was lost. Because he had lied to his paramour for so long and kept secrets from him, he had now caused him this amount of distress. It was his fault. He had to come clear with Kazuichi.

“Kazuichi, I must confess something.” Gundham then said quickly, his own voice now also wavering from worry at his consort's reaction to what he was going to hear. “I am in fact not a human being but a practician of magic and what you are seeing is a magical portal that I have created to keep my true nature hidden from you. I am deeply sorry for having lied to you for such a long time despite knowing that you have issues with trust from past happenings. I wished nothing more than to tell you the truth, yet I have never had the courage for it as I feared that you might resend me if you knew that I was not human like you are.” The more he talked, the more his voice turned weaker and he could not bear to look at his consort from the guilt as he confessed. “I do understand if you do not wish to see me again, after I have lied to you for so long and am a being that you fear.”

***

After his almost panic attack, Kazuichi was now speechless. Gundham was a mage this whole time? And even worse, he was now even feeling guilty about himself to lying and thinking Kazuichi was angry or something with him for it. Quickly trying to swallow his still lingering shock, he gently made Gundham look at him again.

“Gundham, calm down, it's okay.” Kazuichi tried to reassure his boyfriend.

“But I have lied to you for so long.” Gundham replied with his head still downcast from his guilt, making Kazuichi's heart ache.

“Gundham, it's really okay. I don't mind that you kept it a secret that you're not a human, believe me.” Kazuichi stressed again, “I'm also not human.”

Instantly upon hearing this, Gundham's head shot up again and he looked at Kazuichi with bewilderment, “You are not? Then what kind of being are you?”

“I'm a merman.” Kazuichi told him and tried to slowly ease the mood again by joking, “Or did ya think I have these razor sharp teeth just because?”

Now it was Gundham who was staring at Kazuichi with wide eyes. “Are you being serious now or are you not believing what I am telling you despite you seeing the portal behind me?”

“If ya don't believe me, you can follow me into the bath and see for yourself.” Kazuichi said half seriously and half joking, “Why did ya think that I never let you see me in the bath? It's not because I'm shy or anything but because fins are kinda hard to hide. Same with these people last week who were staring at me. I was singing out loud and accidentally enchanted them.” This was still a bit of an awkward incident, even more when considering that it was by far not the first time something like this happened. However that was a topic for another time.

For a moment Gundham was silent as his mind tried to sort everything out, before he mumbled, “I do believe that would explain many things about you.”

“Yeah, I can say the same thing about you.” Kazuichi replied, “I mean I always just assumed you to took your occult hobby a bit more serious than others, but I guess it wasn't just a normal hobby for you.” Which made him wonder how many of his old school mates who had been in the same Occult Club like Gundham were actually real occult beings and not humans liking fantasy stories and being embarrassing for actual occult beings. “However you won't believe how relieved I am now that I finally got to tell ya the truth, since I can't lie that keeping everything a secret while living together was shit.”

“Not the way that I would phrase it, however I have to agree that it was a constant struggle to keep the truth hidden while sharing our realm and lives.” Gundham nodded as he then finally deactivated the portal while letting his paramour watch his magical craft for the first time ever since the fateful day that they have met.

“Wow, that's so cool! You can actually do magic!” Kazuichi looked at him in awe, now that all of their original shock had vanished into nothingness.

“I must thank you my paramour.” Gundham could not help the rushing of his blood towards his face. “However I have to admit that I am feeling curious about your true form, as I have never had the opportunity of encountering a merman within my travels.” As even most beings of the dark did not reveal themselves to others within the human realm, it was a rarity to meet other beings despite their high number living within the human realm.

To Gundham's surprise and mild embarrassment, Kazuichi then gave a teasing grin as he placed his arms around his boyfriend's neck as he purred, “Well my offer still stands that ya can join me in the bath, where ya can show me even more of your _magic_.”

Gundham could not lie that he could now feel his blood moving into other regions of his body at the offer, as his ever so seductive beloved let go of him and with a wink went towards the bathroom with full knowledge that Gundham would follow to learn more about each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Since it's mentioned in this fic, I personally do headcanon that Twin!Izuru and Yasuke are best friends


End file.
